Quote:
Originally Posted by glennQNYC
I feel compelled to remind everyone that this pursuit occurred after the suspects had already been involved in a gunfight and taken a hostage. This isn't a situation where LE is pursuing someone who simply isn't pulling over.
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I agree with all the comments here about how it's easy for us to sit back and poke holes in what happened as we were not there, in the middle of a highly dynamic and risky situation.
However, if we step back and assess for a moment...What we have is a couple dudes who attempted to rob a jewelry store. Their motive was robbery. They were met with unexpected force by the store owner which set into motion the subsequent gunfight at the store, the UPS truck jacking, and the hostage taking. We will never know if the UPS driver was intended to be a hostage or just happened to be in his truck at the wrong time. But regardless, let's ask ourselves what would have likely happened if there was literally zero police response. Not a cop in site anywhere. What happens? My bet is those two dudes drive off in the UPS truck, abandon it and the driver at some point, and disappear. At worst they kill the driver on the way. Maximum casualty of that outcome is 1. Now dont get me wrong, I'm not saying there should be no LOE response but in my mind this does indicate that a helicopter following them instead of a high speed pursuit and subsequent wild-west style shoot-out on a gridlocked highway with civilians used as shields might have been the better course.